As personal communications devices (e.g., smartphones) are developed to support greater and greater functionality, people are using them to do much more than talk. As is well known, these devices now usually allow their users to create media files (e.g., by taking a picture or by recording a video using a camera on the device), to download media files from remote servers (via a web interface supported by the device), and to access interactive applications.
However, even as people spend more time online, traditional media remain very important. Indeed, rather than simply replacing traditional media time with online time, many people (more than 30% of television viewers as of mid-2012, according to survey data) are beginning to “multi-task,” that is, to combine traditional and new media. For example, while a user watches television, his personal communications device becomes a “companion device” displaying content often, but not always, related to the content shown on the television. This user may engage in an interactive application (e.g., check his e-mail) on the companion device while at the same time remaining at least peripherally aware of the content that the television is displaying.
Today there are several products that allow television viewers to consume and to create secondary content that is related to the television program that they are watching. A service produces a synchronized feed of television programming and related web articles, websites, tidbits, etc., for display on a companion device (or on a second window on the television screen). The feed is generated automatically using some preliminary analysis of closed-caption text and television-programming information (e.g., information from an electronic program guide). Other products allow users to enter comments at specific points within a TV program. These comments are then presented to other users when they are watching the same program.
However, it is often very difficult to find secondary content that is relevant to the current interests of the TV viewers. One reasons for this is that users often discuss topics that are tangential to the content of the TV show, that is, that have only a second degree of connection to the TV content. For example, in a sports game, users may chat about the girlfriend of one of the players, although there is no mention of the girlfriend in the closed-caption text or in the other programming information available to the system that produces the secondary-content feed.